The number of migrant deaths crossing the U.S.-Mexico border will reach 500 in 2023

The number of migrant deaths crossing the U.S.-Mexico border this year is 500, including 134 in just one area.

Additional Border Patrol agents have been deployed to the desert west of El Paso, where deaths have skyrocketed in 2023.

Most died of heat exhaustion during this year’s record-breaking temperatures, perishing in dusty desert areas that offer little shade or shelter from the elements.

“Smugglers crossed (migrants) during the hottest part of the day, and some just didn’t make it,” an agent said on condition of anonymity.

In one week in August, five migrants died of heat exhaustion, federal sources told The Post, prompting agents to be moved from other areas to El Paso, currently the fourth-busiest border crossing in the country.

The vast majority of the region’s 134 deaths were heat-related, the U.S. Border Patrol told the Post. That number is up 88% compared to 71 deaths last year.

The statewide total of over 500 in 2023 was first reported by the New York Times.

In a recent case in El Paso, agents found an unidentified Mexican man on a muggy afternoon of a 104-degree day. the agency said.

The migrant was having seizures and had no pulse when he was discovered. Officers immediately attempted to revive him and called 911.

The ambulance arrived just nine minutes later, but the man had gone into cardiac arrest due to his high body temperature and died, the department said.

In just one week in July, the remains of 10 migrants believed to have died of heat exhaustion were found across the border, the reported Washington Office for Latin America.

In Arizona, a 9-year-old migrant boy died after crossing the border just south of Tucson and having a seizure.

Although he was flown to the hospital, the boy died of multiple organ failure, the Border Patrol described in a report June press release. The boy’s mother told investigators that her son had no underlying medical conditions and had been in suffocating heat and without water for more than an hour before becoming ill.

Traffickers typically hide during the hottest times of the day, preferring to secretly smuggle migrants across the border when the sun has set and temperatures are coolest.

But this year – Texas’ second hottest year on record – callous cartel smugglers continued illegal crossings despite the triple-dry temperatures in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

The remote region just outside Texas is a hotbed for migrant smuggling. Because of the scorching heat, criminals there expect less surveillance by border guards.

“[The dead] either lost in the desert or left behind by coyotes (smugglers),” the agent added. “We found some just a few meters from the highway.”

The agent was referring to New Mexico State Highway 9, which runs parallel to the U.S.-Mexico border. Traffickers are leading desperate and unsuspecting illegal migrants across the border, sources told The Post, telling them to run toward the road — in some cases just a few hundred yards away.

There is often a car waiting to pick up the immigrants and take them to their next destination in the United States.

The smugglers sneak back into Mexico, evading the reach of American law enforcement, while the migrants run to the road and to the getaway car. However, sometimes the driver is scared and drives off or is simply not there at all.

This forces illegal immigrants whose main goal is to evade Border Patrol to stop and hope federal agents find them while they face the harsh elements.

The Border Patrol, whose mission is to independently save all lives at the border as part of its mission to protect the border, criticized the Mexican cartels for their ruthless tactics.

“Transnational criminal organizations continue to recklessly endanger the lives of those they smuggle for financial gain,” Border Patrol spokesman Landon Hutchens said in a statement to The Post.

Human smuggling is a $13 billion a year business for cartels US government estimates.

The cruelty of smugglers led to the deadliest human smuggling case in the U.S. last year, when 53 migrants died because they were trapped on an abandoned big oil rig in San Antonio, Texas.

Federal prosecutors said the truck’s interior temperature reached 140 degrees while the migrants were trapped in the boxcar without air conditioning or water.

“In the El Paso Sector, more than 150 agents are trained as paramedics or paramedics. Every Border Patrol agent is trained in first aid and CPR. Agents will be redeployed to areas of increased migrant traffic within the sector as needed,” the agency said in a statement.

In addition, the department has placed 17 rescue beacons and 500 rescue signs in high-traffic areas so that migrants in distress can receive assistance even if they do not have a phone.

Agents in the El Paso Sector also rescued more than 485 migrants this fiscal year, which began in October.

“We want to save some lives,” said border guard Fidel Baca KFOX TV.

“When we patrol the desert here, we have to switch gears immediately. We need to change our mentality from a law enforcement mentality to a search and rescue mentality.”